Russia Is Building a Wholly Separate, Back up Internet in Case of Major War

THE RUSSIAN MILITARY is building a massive cloud which will serve as backup Internet in the event of a war. The cloud will be ready in two years and will allow Russia to survive in wartime, even they are totally disconnected.

This new move is part of the country’s ongoing modernization drive, reported The Daily Mail. The intent is for Russia to survive during a major world war, one in which they’d be cut off from everyone else. The “war cloud” will connect to the Russian military’s vast internal network.

President Vladimir Putin’s top IT adviser Herman Klimenko has previously stated that during wartime the country could run on the military’s pre-existing internal network — called the Closed Transfer Segment. “Technically, we are ready for any action now,” he told Russian TV station NTV back in March.

It was first revealed the country was creating an “independent internet” at the end of last year, which would operate separately from the Domain Name System (DNS) used worldwide. During a meeting of the Russian Security Council, officials discussed an initiative to create an alternative to the DNS, claiming the move could protect Russia and a handful of other nations in the event of a large-scale cyber attack. However, there is some speculation that this “war cloud” could be a way for Russia to launch its own malicious operations, Defense One reported at the time.

According to a new report, the country could run commercial traffic using its own internal network aptly dubbed the “war cloud.” The war cloud, which is being built at a cost of 390 million rubles ($6 million/ £4.5 million), will rely on data centers all over the country and the first one has purportedly already been completed in the military’s Southern District. The creation of this first center increased Russian power and influence in the area as well. According to a report by Defence One, this is an area that includes the Crimean peninsula as well as parts of eastern Ukraine.

According to Sam Bendett, an associate research analyst at non-profit research organization CNA, Russia sees this as key to helping protect its data from Western interference. “Russia is investing in military high-tech development, and especially in domestically produced software and hardware,” he told Defence One. “The data centers working with this cloud are all made with ‘Russian components,” said Bendett, who is also a fellow in Russia studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. “Until recently, many IT components in the military and civilian sectors were Western — that is starting to change,” he said.

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Source: Russia Insider